Taihan Electric Wire's 11,000-Ton Cable-Laying Vessel to Be Deployed for Offshore Wind in South Korea

en.Wedoany.com Reported - On August 13, Taihan Electric Wire announced that its newly acquired submarine cable-laying vessel, the "Skandi Connector," has completed pre-commissioning preparations and is scheduled to be deployed in August for the Yeonggwang Nakwol offshore wind power project in South Korea, where it will perform burial work on already-laid submarine cables. This will mark the vessel's first offshore wind project since its delivery to Taihan Electric Wire.

On August 12, Taihan Electric Wire held a safe navigation ceremony for the vessel at Orient Shipyard in Gamcheon Port, Busan, South Korea, and inspected the vessel's facilities, construction equipment, personnel arrangements, and on-site operational systems. The "Skandi Connector" was purchased from Norway's DOF Group in May 2026, completed port entry and delivery in South Korea in July, and subsequently entered the phases of vessel inspection, equipment maintenance, and operational team assembly.

The vessel is an 11,000-ton offshore wind cable-laying ship with a total length of 138.4 meters, capable of carrying approximately 7,000 tons of submarine cables at a time, and is equipped with a DP2 dynamic positioning system, a large cable carousel, and tensioning equipment. Designed by the Dutch shipyard Damen and built in 2016, the vessel has previously participated in 27 submarine cable projects, completing approximately 1,300 kilometers of cable installation in total.

For this operation, the vessel will use its onboard remotely operated vehicle (ROV) for trenching and cable burial to embed the already-laid submarine cables at the specified depth beneath the seabed, reducing the risk of cable damage from fishing gear, anchors, and other maritime activities. After completing its first project, Taihan Electric Wire plans to continue deploying the vessel for offshore wind projects in South Korea and overseas, long-distance subsea grid interconnections, and high-voltage direct current (HVDC) transmission projects.

The Yeonggwang Nakwol offshore wind power project is located in the waters near Nakwol-myeon, Yeonggwang-gun, South Jeolla Province, South Korea, with a planned installed capacity of 364.8 megawatts, consisting of 64 wind turbine units with a single-unit capacity of 5.7 megawatts, and a total investment of approximately 2.3 trillion Korean won. The project achieved commercial power generation from its first turbine in December 2025; as of June 4, 2026, overall construction progress had reached 83.6%, with 15 turbine units already in operation.

Taihan Electric Wire had previously used the "PALOS" vessel to complete the laying of two 28-kilometer export cables for this project. With the addition of the "Skandi Connector," the company has established a dual cable-laying vessel operational system, capable of undertaking array cables, export cables, long-distance grid interconnections, and cable burial tasks based on cable type, water depth, construction environment, and project scale.